India is going to Mars, the countdown begins

The PSLV C 25 is scheduled to lift off at 2.38 PM on Tuesday from the spaceport at Sriharikota. If the Rs 450 crore mission is a success, ISRO will be the 4th space agency to have sent a mission to Mars.

India is inching towards a milestone in space technology with preparatory work in full swing at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh to launch the country's first inter-planetary satellite to Mars on Tuesday.

"The countdown for the launch, which commenced yesterday has been progressing smoothly. Things are normal. We are busy with preparatory work," an ISRO spokesman told PTI over phone.

The Launch Authorisation Board of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had on November 1 given its consent for launch of the Mars Orbiter Mission after a successful launch rehearsal the previous day.

The 44.4 metre tall rocket has been mounted on the pedestal of the First Launch Pad at the spaceport,covered by a 76 metre tall Mobile Service Tower, designed to withstand a wind speed of 230 km per hour, in case of a cyclone. It will be removed as the countdown comes closer to the launch.

PSLV C 25 is scheduled to lift off at 2.38 PM Tuesday from the spaceport, about 100 km from here.

Vehicle tracking stations at Port Blair, Bylalu near Bangalore and Brunei are on an alert mode, while sea-borne terminals on board Shipping Corporation of India's vessels SCI Nalanda and SCI Yamuna have taken their positions at South Pacific Ocean, ISRO sources said.

The sea-borne terminals on board SCI ships are to capture the crucial moment of the vehicle injecting the satellite on Earth's orbit somewhere above South America.

The rocket is expected to take over 40 minutes to inject the satellite on Earth's orbit after take off.

Once launched the satellite is expected to go around Earth for 20-25 days before embarking on a nine-month voyage to the red planet on December 1 and reach the orbit of Mars on September 24, 2014.

If the Rs 450 crore MOM mission turns out to be a success, ISRO would be the fourth space agency in the world to have sent a mission to Mars.

European Space Agency (ESA) of European consortium, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the US and Roscosmos of Russia are the only three agencies which have so far sent their missions to the red planet.

Only 21 of the total of 51 missions sent to Mars by various countries have been successful.

Mars Orbiter technology can be used for other Indian satellites

The technologies developed in building India's Mars Orbiter can be incorporated in other satellites the country would build saving costs and increasing performance, say Indian space scientists.

Scientists at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said the self corrective programmes incorporated in the orbiter, miniaturisation of components, cold starting of the orbiter engine after a gap of 300 days and other things can be incorporated in remote sensing and communication satellites that are built by India.

"The huge autonomy given to the space craft to fend for itself without human intervention from the ground, miniaturisation of components and other technologies can be incorporated in other satellites that India builds," A.S. Kiran Kumar, director at ISRO's Space Application Centre, told IANS.

He said the five payloads of the orbiter together weigh only 15 kg while the spacecraft weighs 1,337 kg and the onboard fuel will be 852 kg. "This is the first time in the world that anybody has realised a spacecraft like this in 15 months flat. If all the systems we have built works successfully, then we can say that India is one of the top nations in building satellites," S. Arunan, project director, Mars Oribiter Mission, told IANS.

According to him, the building of the spacecraft is itself a major challenge as there will be a time gap in communication between the ground stations and the satellite. "We made a new communication system to address this issue," he said. In addition, the space craft has been programmed to self diagnose and take corrective actions on its own. Normally people on the ground stations give commands to the satellites on corrective actions. For a long period, Sun will come between Mars and Earth and there will be total blackout during that time.

"The self diagnostic systems will kept the space craft healthy and on its course," he said. According to him, new navigation software has been developed for the orbiter which has been tested.

The other challenge will be the restarting of the oribiter's engine after 300 days. "We have done ground tests several times and not once the tests have failed," he added. According to him, the other major challenge was the availability of solar power to power the satellite as the solar power available in the Mars range would be one third of what is available on earth.

"The solar cells have to be accordingly designed," Arunan said. Queried about the benefits of these technologies, Arunan said: "These can be incorporated in our remote sensing/earth observation and communication satellites."